Greatest U. S. Presidents?

[beth]

Top 3

My picks

Thomas Jefferson

Abraham Lincoln

Franklin D. Roosevelt


to you ~

[biglin]

Franklin D Roosevelt

Theodore Roosevelt

Andrew Jackson

[mouse]

from a british perspective franklin roosevelt

[Jessiealan]

John Adams
Thomas Jefferson
Abraham Lincoln

[iamjumbo]

Jan 17, 2011 21:52:06 GMT -5 beth said:

Top 3

My picks

Thomas Jefferson

Abraham Lincoln

Franklin D. Roosevelt


to you ~

if we only get three, i have to take yours

[beth]

Today is the 50th anniversary of JFK's inaugural address.

www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/jfkinaugural2.htm

[Erasmus]

I see here that Eisenhower is being 'rehabilitated'. I don't think he was a bad president, but I don't think he was much good either, a sort of precursor to Ford and ample match for Harold MacMillan's Never had it so good Britain sort of hoping that everything would return to the 1930s again but better. Rosa Parks and Joe MacCarthy did their opposite things - Ike told everybody that everything in the garden was coming up roses and played golf.

[Jessiealan]

Dwight Eisenhower was a likable, easy going man. I do not believe he was conservative enough for some present day Republicans to accept him as one of their own. He was a favorite of my parents.

[Erasmus]

He was the man for his times that really were fantastically better than before. The USA had the Korean War closer than WW2 and didn't want another one at home. I don't really know enough about presidents to select good ones. Had he lived longer, JFK might have been seen differently, and had he lived today, liking women and admitting them sexually instead of men would have had him reviled as a pervert. The worst, I think was Truman, who saw what Fascist militarization had done for the Axis and adopted it to invent the Cold War and drive technology and economy through a permanent war footing that makes demilitarization an economic disaster, so must create enemies somewhere and everywhere.

[jaysparrow38]

FDR
JFK
Bill Clinton

[Deleted]

I am frankly astonished to see the names of either Clinton or John Adams suggested.

Adams stole the first contested Presidential election and when he reluctantly had to go after failing to be re-elected he instituted the spoils system.

Clinton has so many blots on his escutcheon it would require a volume the size of an enccylopaedia to contain them all!

[mouse]

and by all acounts his escutcheon was not all volume and size either

[das]

My picks:

#1 George W Bush
#2 Abe Lincoln
#3 HW Bush
#4 HW Bush

Last place or worst of the worst: Bill Clinton

[Erasmus]

Woodrow Wilson has to be up there somewhere but it's a bit of a contradiction because the American ethos was (for the 18th century) anti-monarchical, so places Presidents in a quandry where to be 'great' almost means defying their position as Chief Executive but not King. Monarchs are allowed to be 'Great' because they have very little in the way of government to control how they turn out. The ideal President in a way is somebody like Ford who keeps everything ticking over and plays a mainly negative role that prevents anybody or anything from getting enough control to be seen as 'great'.

[beth]

I don't think Clinton was a bad Prez. He was probably a bad husband, but then a lot of Presidents and heads of state were/are bad husbands. Should not have anything to do with a presidential ranking.